The Loose Association of Wargamers

I haven't drunk Brains since 1982 when I had to down a 3 pint tankard of Brains Dark on my stag night
The Med club (student bar) record was 7.8 seconds.........

It took me 4..................................






Minutes
I was so I couldn't touch the stuff again even after all these years

7.8 is pretty good. Brings back memories of breaking the Edinburgh Uni record for the pint in Freshers Week, and then being disqualified for the pettifogging triviality that I was only 15. The record had been set by the Australian PM Bob Hawke as I recall.

Ok I am planning to paint some classic napoleonics with a French cavalry unit in 'Frogruary' followed by a Prussian one in 'Marsch'

Do Brains still sponsor the Wales rugby team?

BaronVonWreckedoften wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 11:47 am Do Brains still sponsor the Wales rugby team?

Yup. My dad worked with them for a few years, until someone made him a better offer. He was Wales' top-selling brewery rep for about 30 years and did it purely by being a decent bloke. He never turned up for sales training and dropped/broke/lost every laptop that the sales department gave him, but nobody could ever sack him, because they knew he'd be snapped up by the opposition and take half their trade with him.

Why do other people's dads always have the cool jobs? Mine was a feckin' accountant - I wouldn't mind, but - typically - I inherited my mother's financial "abilities"!

I'm with you Baron, my dad was a teacher. Although I often wondered what he would have become had he taken up the offer of officer training during his national service. He told me years later that he wanted to, but the family were too poor for him to become an officer.

Oddly enough, my father was offered a commission at the end of his NS as well - in the Education Corps, no less, with a hint that he would be working at the Staff College at Camberley! Because he'd been doing his accountancy articles when he was called up, he spent his two years in the Pay Corps at Woolwich, doing the personal tax returns for Major General Rooney, the Army's Paymaster-General. About once a month, Rooney would give him a long list of figures to add up with no writing on it anywhere; eventually, my dad plucked up the courage to ask him what the list was and was told it was the payroll for the entire Army worldwide (this was around the time of Suez). Rooney was from Cork, my dad was from Kerry, so my dad asked if anyone in the Government knew that two Irishmen were in charge of checking this - he said it was the first time in his life he saw tea come out of someone's nose. When Rooney recovered, he winked at my dad and said: "I think we'll keep that one to ourselves!"

My father was Royal Scots Greys. I think they were just desperate for officers who could count. Duggie Stewart was the CO at the time (1952). He served on Centurions, A bit different from today where they are basically truck drivers. No tanks. The other side of the family were all Black Watch and Seaforths (being MacKenzies on my grandmother's side).

My father managed the somewhat unlikely feat of being commissioned as an officer for his National Service. He'd deferred NS whilst doing Medicine at uni & was made a Flight Lieutenant. Despite being an MO he managed to (unofficially) learn to fly & equally unofficially flew some operational sorties (in the spare seat) on recce (ELINT I guess) missions along the Iron Curtain. He spent the bulk of his time at RAF Tangmere & at the time the place full of WWII, and some BoB, veterans.